Sword Art Online: Alpha
by writerfromheaven
Summary: Akira Kozomi was an SAO beta tester. Yes, he saw Kirito around. No, they don't really know each other. Yes, this is a Self Insert. No, the main character isn't randomly overpowered. No, the main character isn't your run-of-the-mill player either. No, I won't tell you the entire plot of this story before you read it. That's why you click the underlined blue words you see above.
1. Entering SAO

The beta test had just ended.

I had received my own copy of Sword Art Online, and the official launch was in 1 week. I was anxious to enter SAO because in all honesty, I had met more people online than I did in real life.

I had attended school as usual but I hadn't really payed attention to anything. I sighed and got up from my bed. My legs were wobbly so I had to sit back down almost immediately.

Sitting down and pondering life for minutes on end will do that to you. After a few minutes, I was able to walk again. My parents weren't home again, conveniently. They rarely were, after some new jobs had forced them to commute to China.

After an agonizing week of wait, SAO had finally launched. I waited for a few hours after the launch to try and avoid as much lag as possible. Even so, it took half an hour for the game to fully start up. I entered my name into the space for it, Akira.

Wait, did I just use my real name online? Crap. The blur of colors and sounds made me lose my train of thought as I spawned into the world of SAO. I shook my head, clearing my vision of the residual spots that didn't exist. It looked even better than the beta test did. Best of all, there were the people, thousands of them, milling about and convulsing everywhere you looked. Wait, no, conversing. They were conversing.

I had waited 3 hours so that I wouldn't experience any lag with all the people logging in at once. Our house's wifi was pretty bad. I had expected the town to be more muted as the excitement wore off, and it was. But upon further inspection, many of the other players looked terrified and afraid. Do they not like being in this new world?

I snickered as I saw a few people jump to their deaths off the edge of the starting town.

Maybe I should try that at some point, seems pretty funny! It's basically sky-diving, but free!

Being a beta tester, I knew that one of the most important things in this MMORPG was to farm at the early levels.

I sprinted out into the fields surrounding the town. I recognized a few of the people there, having seen them from the beta test. Since there weren't many people around, I found a good spot to start farming. After getting a hold of my new weapon, I charged up a sword skill and went at one of the wild boars near me.

I got a good swing off, but it only clipped the boar on the side of it's chest. Although it didn't look like it was that great of a shot, the boar was nonetheless drained of half its health. It turned immediately and went all rage mode on me. Charging and swinging its tusks. I charged up another sword skill but only managed to deflect the boar's horn instead of damaging it. I still knocked the boar back, so it would have to charge me to actually attack me.

It took the initiative. Charging at me, I dodged to the side and stabbed it with a new sword skill. It burst apart into shards. I didn't think it would give me that much EXP, but it did, I leveled up. Smiling, I checked out the post-battle screen and prepared to continue.

About a month later, I was still on the first floor, to no fault of my own. The entire "front line" was stopped in its tracks. We, as a group, had found the floor dungeon, but to my knowledge we had yet to find the boss room itself. And even if someone had found the boss room, they were either dead or keeping silent.

I was facing some Kobolds in the outer regions of Aincrad. I was about to finish off a weakened kobold when a huge amount of them banded together to face me.

I knew that I was able to fight one of them 1-on-1 but 6 at a time? This was going to be a chore, assuming I could even win.

I charged up a sword skill and went after the mob in front of me. It wasn't moving, so there must have been some strange thing going on with the aggro. However, a new kobold came and blocked my strike.

Out of my peripheral vision I saw another kobold charge at me. The perils of fighting 1-on-6, I guess. I braced myself for its sword to hit, when someone came out of nowhere and stabbed the kobold in the side. It exploded into pieces.

That must have taken some crazy Strength, because that definitely wasn't a crit area.

With the help of my comrade-in-arms, we managed to kill all of the kobolds together. After I had stabbed the last one through the chest and watched it burst into pieces, I turned around and saw the other person staring back at me. He seemed familiar, and spoke first.

"Hi, my name's Kirito, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thanks for saving me. Oh, right, um, my name's Akira."

"Hmm... Akira, were you one of the beta testers? You look like you know what you're doing."

"Yeah, I was. You must be too, I think I remember seeing you on the 3rd or 4th floor."

"Maybe you did, I wouldn't doubt it." He shrugged. "Hey, I heard that some people are meeting up tomorrow morning in order to discuss how to defeat the boss of the first floor, wanna come?"

"So they've found the boss room? That's a relief. Yeah, I think I'll come, what about you?"

"I'm coming. See you there, try not to die until then."

"Dude, it's tomorrow. If I survived 'till here, there's no way I'm dying now." He gave an amused snort. "See you around, Kirito!"

Kirito turned and started walking back towards the Starting City.

I nodded to myself. I was definitely going. Not only would I get a load of EXP from beating the boss, I might even get a good item if I managed to get the Last Attack - often abbreviated to "LA" - on the boss. I starting walking back to town.

* * *

-The Next Day-

"Alright then, listen up! Tomorrow, we will be conducting the boss raid. In order to do this, we are going to need all the information we can get." The person named Diabel announced. He was apparently the person who called the meeting, and its self-styled leader.

"Hold on, wait just a minute! Before we start, I want to talk to a whole bunch of people here! The stupid Beta Testers!"

Murmurs started up.

"They were the ones that took all the good farming spots and low level quests right in the beginning, and what's more they abandoned the rest of us who knew nothing! All these deaths could have been prevented! So I say that we can't trust them unless every single one of them apologizes to all the people they've killed!"

The rest of the players, which until this point had only been muttering their consent, had now changed to an uproar. This encouraged the person, named Kibaou, to continue talking.

"So all of the beta testers should come down and beg on their knees for forgiveness! They are the ones to blame for everyone dying!"

Kirito turned to me with much the same expression as I did on my face. Were we going to be found out?

A deep voice rose among the crowd. A tall person stood up from the front row. His skin was dark and his head was bald.

"Wait. Your claim is that the beta testers should be blamed because they didn't share their prior knowledge with everyone?" Kibaou automatically took a step back from the larger man's implied challenge.

"Yeah, so?"

"All of the information you speak of was available at most of the shops. It was in this free booklet which provided information for the entire floor. Low level quests, farming spots, items, bosses even. All of it was here, and all of it was compiled and published by Beta Testers."

The man turned to face the crowd. He brought out his copy of the slightly tannish book and tapped it for emphasis. Kibaou grumbled to himself, frustrated at losing his momentum. Many of the players at the meeting had bought and used the "Information Booklet" at some point, but were simply unaware of its origins.

Agil and Kibaou both left to their seats, and Diabel called out to all the players gathered in front of him,

"We are going to need to assault the boss in parties, so let's form them now before the actual fight. Parties can be groups of 2-6."

People instantly broke off into friendly groups of 5 or 6. Most of them had probably worked together before. With no one asking to be in a party with us, we made a up a party of ourselves. Kirito glanced next to him and saw a person in a red coat sitting off alone nearby. From their general figure I assumed assumed it was a she, but I wasn't sure.

I was waiting for Kirito to notice her. After he did, Kirito asked her if she wanted to be in a party with us. After processing the question, she quickly joined. I saw her name next to her HP gauge. It was Asuna.

The next day, the entire group went out to fight the boss. Our party stayed in the back, Asuna wasn't a beta tester, it seems. She just didn't have the same understanding of game mechanics I would expect out of one of us.

Diabel pushed open the door to the boss chamber. It had been a bit of a struggle to get through the dungeon, but none of us were dead yet. From the information booklet, we learned that the boss, Illfang the Kobold Lord, had 4 HP gauges, as did all the other bosses in SAO.

When the boss fight started he would spawn multiple ruin sentinels, elite kobolds. After his health last health bar reached red, his weapon should switch from his regular ax and shield into a talwar, a curved blade.

We entered the boss room. It was huge, and almost pitch black.

Thoom!

Two torches right near us on the tall walls lit up.

Thoom!

Thoom!

Thoomthoomthoomthoomthoomthoomthoomthoom!

Torches lit up in the dark chamber, forming an ever-expanding lightened area that progressed into the depths of the room.

Until they illuminted Illfang.

The monstrous beast of red and blue lept off his seat and landed in front of us. He reared back his head and roared, showering us with electronic spittle. His Ruin Kobold Sentinels spawned.

The boss fight had begun.


	2. Illfang the Kobold Lord

Hello again! writerfromheaven here, If you're reading this, then you're not one of the people that read my first chapter and stopped there. Congratulations! Please feel free to give yourself a hug. I will write more, so you can enjoy this feeling even more. Thanks!

* * *

The fight went well. Being assigned to support group E wasn't all that bad. I personally killed about 15 or so of the Ruin Sentinels. They gave me a load of EXP but not quite enough to level up.

"Group E, Move in on the attack! Get Illfang's last health bar down to red!"

I hadn't realised that Illfang's health had gotten so low. We went in to attack him.

Since group E was mainly made up of vanguards, we were able to take most of its attacks and still be able to return some damage.

After a few minutes of this fighting, Illfang jumped backwards, threw away his ax and shield, and pulled out, not a talwar, but a nōdachi, a broadsword. However, not many people seemed to notice, as they didn't really know what a nōdachi or a talwar was.

I didn't hear what Diabel was saying, but when he went out to charge the boss, he was the only one.

Kirito also noticed the strange weapon switch, and managed to choke out a strangled "Stop!"

He got into position to block the expected Talwar attack, How does he know how to block Talwar sword skills?, but such an attack never came. Instead, Illfang used his nōdachi for a nōdachi combo (would you believe it), and Diabel was completely rekt.

I gasped, and watched his health bar drain quickly. Kirito ran over to him, they exchanged some quiet dialogue which was ended by Diabel exploding into shards.

I slowly walked up to Kirito, in front of the main group of people. His expression was grim. Asuna ran over to join us. After a few seconds, Kirito lashed out and charged Illfang. Sighing and cocking my head slightly, I ran after him, with Asuna close behind.

"Asuna, Switch!"

Kirito had just blocked a strike from the nōdachi and Asuna ran in to strike a blow. It connected, and Illfang let out a shriek of pain. Since Asuna didn't know my name, all she could say was,

"Switch!"

I knew that this was my chance. I ran in and stabbed him in the chest, but quickly yanked out my sword to block a blow from Illfang's nōdachi.

"Asuna, Switch!"

I jumped back as Asuna ran in again. I immediately sensed something was wrong. Illfang switched his attack pattern and went with a special strike. Asuna barely dodged, but her red coat was slashed off. It revealed a young brunette, wearing a white dress. She looked about the same age as us, but at that point, it didn't matter as Asuna got a nice strike to Illfang's left arm, immobilizing it. And also, since Asuna didn't know Kirito's name either all she could say was,

"Switch!"

Kirito leaped in right as Asuna pulled back. Illfang swung his nōdachi, but I barely managed to block it as Kirito, now unopposed by anything, dealt the finishing blow with a perfect Vertical Arc. Illfang exploded into red shards.

* * *

Everyone was cheering, Kibaou, Agil, the sound wasn't deafening, but it was filled with joy. After a minute Kibaou suddenly stopped them, and started to glare.

"Wait a minute, where's Diabel? You, you let him die? How could you?! You knew what kind of skill the boss had! You even told him to stop! I bet you just wanted the Last Attack bonus!"

Kirito looked taken aback by this. I hoped this wouldn't happen.

"You knew he was going to switch to something other than the nōdachi, didn't you? Why didn't you tell him! He could still be here, laughing with us, you... monster!"

Kirito didn't know what to say. I felt the urge to leap to Kirito's defense.

"Diabel chose his own path, if you want to criticize Kirito for that, then go ahead and do so, but tell that to Diabel when you see him again." I responded, my face even.

Kibaou was nonplussed, he gritted his teeth and his head sunk. I could see tears dripping from his face. I knew my argument was good, but not enough to stop the people on Kibaou's side. The rest of the people started siding with him until eventually Kibaou looked up and said.

"I know what you are, Kirito, you're one of those guys! No wonder you knew what to do! You're a... a beta tester, a cheater, a beater!"

Kirito smirked and slyly responded,

"Beater huh, I like the sound of that. Beater... Well, go and sulk for yourself, I made a promise to Diabel, I would clear the game for him."

Kirito opened up his items menu and selected one, He must've gotten it from getting the LA on the boss. It was a dark black coat. Kirito look surprisingly cool in it.

"Come on, Asuna, Akira, let's go."

"Wait a minute," Asuna said, looking at Kirito and me perplexedly, "How'd you guys know my name when I never even told it to you?"

"That's easy, it's right next to our HP gauge. You can check it out when you're in a party." Kirito pointed out, "Or, if you look hard enough you'll usually see it above someone's head, although it's not as consistent."

"Oh! So... you're.. Ki...ri...to.. Kirito? And you're... A... Akira?"

"Yep! Now come one Asuna, let's go to on the next floor." I said.

"Uhm, sure!"

We silently walked up to the next floor, leaving everyone else, except Agil, who came running after us, behind.


	3. The Trap

Hello, writerfromheaven here. If you're reading this, then you probably like my story. Why else would you read my other chapters and make it to this one? And since you obviously like my story so much, then why aren't you writing reviews? This will be changed once at least 5 reviews are written.

* * *

"Cheers!"

We were currently at the inn on floor 20. Kirito and I were with a group of people that we had farmed with recently. This group, also a guild, was called, "The Black Cats".

"Umm, Cheers.."

Kirito didn't like being the center of attention apparently.

"Really though, if it wasn't for you Kirito, We might still be on floor 7. Thanks!"

The comments streamed in from the rest of the members of The Black Cats.

"Umm, Kirito, you too Akira, I know this is prying, but what're your levels?" the guild leader, called Keito asked us.

I sneaked a glance over at Kirito and read his face pretty well.

"Well, I'm around level 20, you too Akira, right?"

"Yeah, but i'm pretty sure that you're a few levels higher than me…"

Since Kirito was still in the party with me, I could see his level, 38. I was 36.

Keito looked surprised.

"Cool! That's around our level too! Also, I was wondering if you want to join our guild?"

There were a few seconds of silence. I knew that if it continued for much longer, things were going to get awkward.

"Sure!" I responded.

* * *

About a month later, when I was about to fall asleep, I heard Kirito, who was in the bed next to mine, got up and put on his coat which he got from getting the LA on Illfang.

Trying not to wake Sachi, who was in bed next to him, I asked

"Hm, Kirito, where're you going?"

"Oh, you're already awake. That's good. I was going to go farm some of the higher level mobs to maintain my level. I was wondering if you wanted to come."

"Sure! Just gimme a sec, I'm still a bit tired."

A few minutes later we were walking out of town.

"Akira, you haven't really given me an answer for where Asuna went after we beat the first floor boss. Where is she?"

"She went off somewhere after we beat the boss. Something about the Clearing group."

Kirito perked up after he heard this.

"Oh, that makes sense. They're a few floors ahead of us but about the same level."

"So why haven't we left these people to go join them?"

"Well, you know Sachi?"

"Wait… do you have a crush on her?"

Kirito sighed.

"No, I don't, but she hasn't been looking that well recently. She seems, well, depressed."

"Hmm, you might want to talk to her soon."

Kirito's response was cut off by a few mobs spawning around us.

(Line Here)

A few days later, Keita spoke to all of us.

"All right, listen up. Through our recent hunts, our guild has accumulated 200,000 Cor!"

Most people cheered. I only smiled. After taking a glance at Kirito, he was smiling as well. He spoke up.

"With this money, we can get some new armor for Sachi!"

"Umm, I'm fine thank you."

While the pestering was going on, I was wondering why Sachi wouldn't want new armor and weapons. Eventually Keita made another announcement.

"Anyways, with this money, our dream to buy a house may not be that far away!"

A lot of people were happy with this and cheered again.

(Line Here)

The next day, Keita went to a lower floor to try and buy a house, after the blue light from the portal disappeared, Tetsuo made a suggestion.

"Hey, let's go farm a bit so we can have money to buy furniture!"

Kirito was a bit unsure of us farming in a high-level dungeon, but soon enough, we were in the dungeon. We had been farming for a while and I was about to suggest if we could go back when Tetsuo found something.

"Hey guys, look at this!" He pushed a weird mark on a wall and it opened up. Revealing a room with a treasure chest.

"Sweet!" We entered the room. Kirito and I both came to the same realization at the same time. It was a trap!

As soon as Tetsuo opened the treasure box, it exploded into shards and the room's walls turned red.

"Wait, what's happening?" Tetsuo stammered as tons of monsters began to spawn all around us.

Tetsuo tried to use a teleport crystal but nothing happened. "It must be an anti-crystal area!"

I detachedly identified the monsters around us to be gnomes and earth sentinels.

"AAAAHHH!"

I turned around to see Sasamaru's body explode into red shards.

"Damn it!"

I tried to save as many people as I could, but didn't manage to do anything at all. If my concentration wavered, I would be killed. I continued fighting while I heard screams of my friends all around me.

* * *

"We're the only ones that survived?"

Kirito didn't respond.

"What's wrong? I know that they were our friends but."

Kirito wasn't talking.

"What's wrong? They'll respawn right?"

"No."

That was the first time Kirito spoke.

"When they die in this game, they die in the real world as well."

I sat down, stunned.

It was about half an hour before I even moved.

Kirito told me that he was legitimately depressed that he had let Sachi die, even more than anyone else. I later learned that he had said that he would protect her.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm continuing on to the higher level floors. Let's clear this game not only for Diabel, but for Sachi, and everyone else too.

Kirito didn't respond. He simply stood up and walked towards the exit of the room.

I sighed, and followed after him.


	4. Arachne the Spider Queen

_Hello! I probably do not need to introduce myself, as you already know that it's writerfromheaven. Crap. Anyways, please feel free to leave a review in the section below and I will respond to it (Hopefully) within the next 24 hours. Thanks!_

* * *

I pushed open the door to the boss room on floor 36. It had been nearly 6 weeks since The Black Cats had died and Kirito was still as glum as ever. I had tried to cheer him up, but to no avail.

 _Thoom!_

The gigantic room was lit up by torches placed in somewhat random spots. On the ground in some places, the walls, even the ceiling. I noticed that where all the torches were, very close by were big bundles of, webbing?

The atmosphere was tense. I heard a creepy crawling sound. Kirito seemed to hear it as well and looked more alert.

 _Thoom!_

After most of the torches had lit up, Kirito and I both noticed that they were going in a spiral pattern around the walls of the room.

 _Thoom!_

Kirito and I drew our swords. Nothing had happened yet. The entire room had been lit up, yet there were no signs of the boss. The air grew tenser. Still, nothing had happened. I started to sweat.

Suddenly, something jumped at Kirito. He just managed to stab it with a sword skill before it landed on his face. And a good thing too because whatever it was, probably would've killed him.

I looked down in front of Kirito to see the wriggling form of a huge red and black spider with almost zombie-like characteristics.

I did a 360, looking for spots where the boss could attack from. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. I looked closer, and found a wall of webbing. All the torches seemed to go right past it. Perhaps trying to trick the player.

The webbing moved. I saw a huge lump in the center of this massive wall. It suddenly burst open and out came a shrieking spider three times the size of Kirito and me. The boss's name appeared above it.

Arachne, the Spider Queen

From other lumps of webbing around where Arachne had burst out of, other spiders that closely resembled the one that Kirito had killed crawled out of their sacs. A new way of spawning, apparently.

Kirito charged up a sword skill and ran at Arachne. I went after her spiderlings. I raised my sword upwards to try and stop a jumping attack. Apparently, the spiderlings weren't very smart and went after me the same way that their friend did. They ended up the same way as well.

After killing what must've been the 30th spiderling, they stopped attacking me. Probably because they were all dead. I guess they weren't actually zombie spiders.

I looked over towards Kirito, who was having a hard time with Arachne. He had been attacking her for a very long time and she wasn't dead, while Kirito, on the other hand, was losing health due to Arachne's poison skills.

Suddenly, the creepy spider boss shot out a ball of webbing and it caught Kirito! He fell to the floor. I sprinted over towards Kirito to try and cut him free, but the webbing was too strong for a quick slice.

I turned and charged at Arachne. I made sure to be wary of her webbing shot.

I charged up my sword skill and tried to hack her leg off. I gave her a deep gash, but Arachne's third hp bar looked like nothing had happened. With a closer look, I realized that it had decreased but by an extremely small amount.

I dodged one of her attacks and tried to strike at her joints. Minimal damage, again.

I was getting pretty pissed off at this point because Arachne's biggest strength was in her armor. I was doing almost no damage and with Kirito incapacitated, I was going to get hit by a web shot before I would be able to kill her.

Suddenly, a notification came up. You have obtained a unique skill, "Overcharge."

Taking a guess at what "Overcharge" was, I charged up a sword skill. I hit maximum but the skill kept charging.

Arachne crawled at me, trying to thwart my little plan. She was only a few feet in front of me when I heard a _ping_ sound coming from my sword. I knew that it was time to strike.

My sword went right through Arachne's abdomen. She crumpled to the floor and burst into shards. Kirito didn't say anything, but his face showed that he was impressed.

The "Congratulations" message appeared in front of both Kirito and I. For getting the LA, I received an item called, Arachne's Skin. It was a kind of armor that had an extremely high defense rating. However, it was heavy, so the user was slowed considerably.

Since neither Kirito nor I wanted to use this item, I planned to auction it off on floor 20 since it had the biggest auction house and the most people.

After reaching floor 37, I teleported down to floor 20 while Kirito tried to find a place for us to sleep that night.

After about an hour, Arachne's Skin was auctioned off to the Divine Dragon Alliance for 300,000 cor. Apparently, money wasn't a problem for them.

After teleporting back to floor 37, I found Kirito spacing out on a bench near the portal, looking as glum as ever.

"Kirito, I know that you were sad about letting Sachi die, but didn't we say that we'd beat the game for her? I know she's dead but..."

"SHUT UP! You… you don't understand. I was the one that was keeping Sachi alive. She was telling me that she wanted to kill herself."

"Well, since you clearly saved her, that's all she wanted wasn't it? I bet she died happy."

"How do you know that! You barely even knew her! And I think she died sad and angry because I couldn't protect-"

I punched Kirito in the face.

"Do you even hear what you're saying right now? Not only are you beating yourself up for not saving her, but you're saying that she now can't rest in peace because you didn't protect her? Are you trying to set yourself up in a giant spiral of despair?"

Kirito yelled at me.

"I know perfectly well what I'm saying! You know as well that people die in the real world if they die in this game! You shouldn't treat death so lightly!"

"You saved Sachi from killing herself! Do you think that after you saved her life she still is mad at you? Did she really care that much? Think! Who really was Sachi anyways?"

Kirito was silent. After a few minutes, he got up and started walking towards the inn. Not saying a single word.


	5. Overcharge

Hello Yet again! I hope you're not tiring of this intro. It's writerfromheaven here and thanks for reading my story! Really though, if you are reading this chapter, then I know you like my story. Thanks!

* * *

"Akira?" Kirito said, in a bed next to mine. We were at the inn on floor 37.

"Yeah, what is it? If it's about Sachi, then think before you say it."

"It's not. I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Well, for a few hours ago. I'm sorry for acting like an idiot."

"Don't dwell on it. I would've acted the same way if I were you."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I don't really want to admit it, but I would've."

"Thanks, that makes me feel better."

"You're welcome.

* * *

-The Next Day-

"Hey Kirito, read this. The Clearing group got stuck on floor 38. We could catch up to them. And maybe, we might meet Asuna again."

Kirito laid down onto the grass.

"How many times do I have to tell you, I don't care about meeting Asuna again."

"Alright then, I'm going to just record that down. So in case you too ever-"

Kirito cut me off.

"Stop it!"

I chuckled a bit.

"Ok, Ok, I'll stop. But still-"

Kirito didn't need to cut me off this time. A few mobs did. I stood up and unsheathed my sword.

Kirito sighed and did the same.

After killing the mobs, Kirito asked me,

"Akira, I was wondering. What did you do that defeated Arachne?"

"Well, I got a unique skill."

"What is a unique skill?"

"Well, It's kinda self-explanatory. It's a skill that only you have. Mine is called 'Overcharge'."

"Ok, so when you charge up a skill, you get to 'Overcharge' it and it deals more damage."

"Yep, at least that's what I think."

I opened the skills menu and selected overcharge.

"'Overcharge'. When using an attacking skill, you are able to 'Overcharge' it. This allows it to deal bonus damage, but requires more time to charge. The bonus time you can charge the skill up for is equal to your level divided by 5. The bonus damage is in a ratio with the time charged."

"Huh, so it was what we thought it was."

"Well, since I'm level 52, I should be able to charge it up for 10.4 seconds. Let's see."

I started charging a sword skill towards a nearby monster that was oblivious of its incoming fate.

Kirito was counting aloud and a little bit after he hit 10, I heard a ping sound. It was the same one that I had heard while fighting Arachne.

I now slashed at the nearby mob, which happened to be a giant boar. I noticed that it dealt about twice as much damage as a normal attack, and I watched the boar explode into shards. At the same time, I realized something as well.

I checked the "Overcharge" skill again. As Kirito ran over toward me.

"Oh… that makes sense."

"What does Akira?"

"Overcharge may not seem like a good idea since it takes a very long time to charge and doesn't do enough damage to make it worthwhile. However, it excels at breaking armor. So I guess it wouldn't've been able to kill her normally, however, with the bonus because it's breaking armor, it dealt bonus damage and managed to kill her."

"That's a really long explanation."

"Thanks…"

We spent the rest of the day farming.

* * *

-That Night-

"Do you think I'll be able to get Sachi back?" Kirito asked. I thought he had fallen asleep but he was thinking to himself it seems.

"Didn't I tell you to stop talking to me about this? Anyways, I'm not sure… you were the one that told me that when someone dies in SAO, they die in the real world."

"I know, but part of me just can't accept it."

"I thought you'd feel that way."

"Why? Do you know me that well?"

"Well, we have been partying with each other for about a year…"

"Ok…. "

"Also, knowing you, you really wish she were back, at least for a few moments, just so you could tell her you're sorry."

"I guess you're right."

"Well, I don't think there's a way to get her back. I hate to tell you, heck, I hate that we're still talking about this, but I don't think that Sachi is going to be coming back."

Kirito was silent.

* * *

-The Next Day-

"Do you think that we can take on the boss today?" Kirito asked.

"Yeah, the clearing group just released some info on how to beat it."

"Really? I didn't see this."

"Did you look?"

"Yes…"

"Well, as something my mother used to say, 'Look with intent to find'."

"I still feel like you made the whole thing up, though."

"If you're so skeptical, let me show you." I opened my items inventory and took out the newspaper.

"See? Right here."

Kirito read aloud.

"The Clearing group has just revealed some information on how to beat the boss on the 37th floor. Since they are stuck on the boss of floor 38, they will probably need as many people as they can get."

Kirito read on and eventually stopped.

"Alright, Ok, Ok, you're right. It does say on how to beat it."

I smirked.

"Well, what are we waiting for let's go!"

Kirito nodded. He looked a little less depressed now.


End file.
